Suicide prevention a priority

While an effort to pass legislation requiring school districts to provide suicide education failed to win House support last week, the battle must continue.

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seacoastonline.com

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Posted Feb. 18, 2014 at 2:00 AM

Posted Feb. 18, 2014 at 2:00 AM

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While an effort to pass legislation requiring school districts to provide suicide education failed to win House support last week, the battle must continue.

State Rep. Donna Schlachman, D-Exeter, sponsored the bill. She crafted it with Tara Ball, whose 14-year-old son Connor, an Exeter High School student, took his own life in October 2011.

Following the House vote to kill the legislation, Ball and Schlachman said they planned to regroup before deciding what to do next to try to win support for suicide prevention education.

We urge both of them to keep fighting because suicide has become a leading cause of death among teenagers and young adults as we are so painfully aware in Exeter and across the Seacoast. We urge our readers to join the effort.

According to the U.S. Center for Disease Control and Prevention, suicide is the third-leading cause of death for young people ages 15 to 24, surpassed only by homicide and accidents. In New Hampshire, suicide is the second-leading cause of death for those ages 15 to 34, according to a 2013 report from the state Suicide Prevention Council.

The issue hits close to home no matter where you are from but it has had a particular impact on the Exeter community, where three Exeter High School students committed suicide in a five-year period.

The schools and community have been responsive to the tragedies. Staff and teachers from Exeter High School and the Cooperative Middle School have been trained to identify the different risk factors and warning signs that lead to teen suicide and have instituted their own suicide prevention programs.

In addition, last year students at Exeter High School raised money for training programs that would help them recognize the risk factors in their peers.

Schlachman's bill would have addressed the issue on a statewide level by requiring all school districts and chartered public schools to provide suicide prevention education and training to pupils, parents, faculty, staff, and school volunteers.

Detractors of the bill noted the state Board of Education in 2008 required schools to conduct suicide prevention education as part of the health and wellness curriculum. However, Schlachman argued that the state has lost 125 young people to suicide since then and that more needed to be done.

Ball also pointed to a survey done by the New Hampshire School Administrators Association in May 2013, saying that 85 percent of school districts do not have a policy in place regarding suicide prevention training.

The state Department of Education said it would have cost roughly $500,000 to implement Schlachman's bill during the first year for personnel, training materials and travel costs.

"Unfortunately we overlooked getting someone on DOE to sit in on the writing of the bill," Schlachman acknowledged last week.

The numbers of teens taking their own lives remains high and as a state there is more that we can do to tackle this issue.

The failure of Schlachman's bill provides an opportunity to get the Department of Education involved in drafting a new bill. Let's take a closer look at what schools are doing well in suicide prevention education and learn where others are falling short.

Perhaps, with the help of the Department of Education, a more thorough statewide program for suicide prevention can be created at a cost that's more reasonable for the DOE.

We must try. This is a matter of life and death for too many teenagers and young adults and they need our help. We must persevere until every school has an effective suicide prevention program in place.